Leveling Up for the Impending Market Boss Battle
Stock markets have enjoyed an epic 14-year bull run party with Fed liquidity fueling the feeds and keeping the mead flowing. But the raid leaders have suddenly pulled the punchbowl as inflation minions overwhelm the castle. Now veteran economic seer Jim Rickards forecasts a savage 40% stock crash amidst a brutal recession as the Fed oversteers. Can investors gear up in time to combat the next market boss battle? I map the PvE hazards and spec out the wisest DPS, HPS and gold grind strats for navigating the chaotic raids ahead.
Who is Jim "The Seer" Rickards?
Jim Rickards is a max level economist and geopolitical strategist with legendary-tier forecasting skills. His 2006 bestseller Currency Wars correctly foresaw the housing bubble bursts sparking the 2008 Global Financial Crisis 15-gear grinds early. No RNG – just analysis of the underlying game mechanics.
Rickards later warned excessive money printing and rampant noob speculation would spawn future #inflationraid. Again proven right as inflation bosses now bombard capital cities worldwide.
How did Rickards skill up such epic predictive talents? His adventures span both high level Wall Street raid teams and supporting the US Government PvP squad:
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Previously served as general counsel battle medic for infamous Game Over hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (LTCM)
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Partied on the front lines healing raid teams during the IMF bailout of LTCM after they pulled massive adds and wiped the whole instance.
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Consulted with CIA economists researching top secret monetary strategies and exploiting devaluation weaknesses vs rival factions.
When Rickards LFG pings economic alerts,ILED and raid leaders worldwide listen up. Let’s analyse why he’s yelling “Incoming 40% Crash! Severe recession!” in all caps across global chat channels.
The 4 Head Raid Bosses Spawning the Next Market Crisis
Rickards identifies 4 key economic nemeses channeling to blast capital cities with cascading debuffs and overrun markets:
Raid Boss 1 – Apocalypse the Inflation Beast
Inflation has bulldozed 17% HP off the market bastions in 2022 alone. June saw it crit for a savage 40 year high 9.1% – 4.5x the Fed’s 2% target. Team transitory embarrassed themselves bigly. With its spiky back still raised and momentum raging, Apocalypse has plenty more bite left in him.
Raid Boss 2 – Overlord Powell & the Fed’s Rate Spike
Despite ample warning, the Fed stayed AFK as inflation trash mobs overwhelmed villages. Now they’ve switched from full dovish heal mode to manic DPS aggression. Ripping rates from 0.25% to 2.5% in months risks class changing from holy priest to curse necrobot without swapping gear. If they overshoot trying to make the DPS check against Inflation, cities will tank too fast. Hello enrage timer. Hello wipe.
Raid Boss 3 – The Bond Market Snake Hidden Lair
A notorious economic snake pit is the yield curve inversion – when short term 2 year bonds pay more than 10 year bonds. This trap signals investors expect upcoming downturns. The curve has fully inverted to almost -30 basis points, consistent with past recessions.
While desperate Fed raiders insist they can tame inflation without a recession, the $50 trillion bond market serpent disagrees. Never taunt the snake lair before your DPS has proven adequate!
Raid Boss 4 – Bubble Bandit the Cyclical Bear
Bubbles in equities and property built up as Fed money printing allowed noobs to loot epic gear. Now recession debuffs will unleash the Bubble Bandit bear on asset values. Psychology shifts from greed to panic. Unemployment ticks up then businesses slash capex. Debt deflation mobs spawn. A negative feedback loop gathers pace whacking markets further.
Throw in random catalysts like a Chinese Taiwan invasion, cyber attacks, nuclear crisis and markets crash even faster. Extra adds pile into already chaotic wipes. Not ideal.
Rickards predicts Bubble Bandit will flay 40% base HP off market boss S&P 500 on this cycle, plus ignite a punishing recession from turn 5 lasting up to 10 rounds. And exposes overextended raid teams to huge wipe out risks if they underprepare. Let’s assess survivability.
Quantifying the Crash Call
A 40% bear mauling would gut the S&P 500 from 4818 max HP down to 2890 base HP. We’ve already leaked 17% to 4145 in impatient DPS pulls before the tanks were ready.
At sector level, bubble speculative tech stock non-tanks could drop almost 60% taking max damage. Oww! Though history shows markets taking even heavier damage when Bubble Bandit enrages deep like 2008.
Surviving the Crash
Navigating Bubble Bandit‘s cyclical recession raids requires careful talent respeccing and LFG team balance:
- Swap DPS Spec to Defense
Rotate battlemage builds from pure DPS glass cannons into more defensive setups. Lock down tank healer roles. Spec into self-heals via harvesting consumables, amassing repair gold reserves and stacking buff food/elixirs.
- Grind Recession-Proof Factions & Instances
Prioritise zones and factions with quests resilient to economic debuffs. The Healthcare Hills, Consumer Plateau and Utilities Gorge areas fare better when crowds thin in downturns. Discount dungeons also remain popular to save repair costs.
- Hedge Bets With Bear Battalion
Consider paying bear mercenaries via PUTs or inverse ETFs to profit directly from or offset stock declines. Hold inflation-resistant gold to offset potential currency devaluation from extended quantitative easing restarts.
- Diversify Across Raid Tiers and Servers
Spread characters and assets across different tiered servers and game instances – Tier 1 US stocks, Tier 2 International indices, Tier 3 sector plays in commodities, emerging markets. Reduces whole portfolio exposure if any single zone instawipes.
- Gear Up For Extended Raid Campaign
The average market boss cycle from peak heroism to crushing despair lasts around 4 years. Ensure sufficient provisions for drawn out campaigning – factor downtime, injuries, repair costs over multiple wipes. Conserve some powder reserves to spec into fresh DPS roles when the new bull campaign PvE launches after Bubble Bandit gets banished back to his cave by inflation collapsing under persistent Fed DPS raids.
Weighing Other Crisis Raid Scenarios
Despite Rickards’ pedigree, even the most skilled seers cannot foresee every crit and healing cool down. Let’s theorycraft some alternative boss spawn scenarios:
Raid Option 1: Soft Landing Success
Inflation yields to focused Fed DPS, reversing without major economic wounds. Consumers continue spending, executives invest in confident expansion. Market indexes trade flat to slightly positive.
Likelihood: Heroic difficulty given present debuff stacks. Requires perfect group coordination. Wipe likely.
Raid Option 2: Shallow Recession
A short sharp recession gouges 15-20% equity HP and inflicts a GDP debuff for 2 fiscal quarters before confidence recovers.
Likelihood: Achievable on normal mode difficulty – but adds must not overwhelm tanks and healers.
Raid Option 3: Depression Devastation:
Freak black swan adds like EU collapse or global cyber attack trigger critical fiscal wounds. Equities graveyard wipe, taking over a decade to recover. Healers overwhelmed.
Likelihood: The extreme Mythic mode if multiple factors spiral out of control. Never fully discount.
The Baseline Scenario:
A painful cyclical bear market sees equities mauled 40% top to bottom alongside a year+ recession before Fed DPS brings inflation back into farmable range. Recovery takes up to 5-6 years.
Matches prevailing debuff trajectories and Rickards’ core call. Likelihood: Expected on current Heroic scaling.
The Outlook
In short, max level soothsayer Rickards has nailed prior raid boss spawns and sees market chemistry primed for a resurgent Bubble Bear to inflict 40% damage on headline indices. Even 20-30% wounds would still leave portfolios seriously challenged on later progression stages.
While the Fed and government guilds will ultimately bring inflation melee adds back under control given time to grind upgrades, immense economic hardship and extended repair downtime looks guaranteed interim.
Batten down the hatches, spec defense, diversify server exposure and watch those health stone cooldowns. We have a rough boss gauntlet ahead – but our fleet has survived similar battles before. Sooner or later the tides will turn back our way.
For now brace yourselves raiders – this market boss looks angry and we’ve definitely got his attention!